| I am honoured to be invited to speak to the European
Social Forum Meeting in London, October 15-17, 2004. I am
told the primary concern for this meeting is the environment.
High time! The clock is ticking … global warming cannot
be ignored anymore. We are the environment. Environment is
our ambience, our abode, the air we breathe, water that nurtures
and earth that sustains and provides.
Along with the fellowship of creation, we all long to live.
Environment is our destiny. Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible
Medicine (DLRM) together with Comitato Scientifico (EQUIVITA)
and Comite Scientifique (Pro Anima) constitute the Alliance
for Responsible Science (AFRS): an alliance for sanity and
survival. From London to Rome, to Paris, to nations worldwide.
Unlike the North Atlantic Bermuda Triangle where many ships
and planes mysteriously disappeared, ours is a safe harbour,
a state of mind, a state of heart, a state of being; a station
where bioenergy is harnessed to lift and energise ourselves
and the fellowship of creation. Our message and voyage affirm
and declare the universal admonition: Do No Harm; Live and
Let live; Love and Let Love. Disregarded and neglected, the
admonition metamorphosed into a distress call. Procrastination
kills momentum. Move on with the alliance for survival. Now
Europeans are besieged by more than 100,000 chemicals, surreptiously
permeating their systems, inundating their organs and penetrating
their cells. Yet, many don’t know it. Approximately
98% of these intruders have not been tested for their effect
on health of humans and the environment. Worldwide, chemicals
pervade air, water and soil and do harm; from serious to grave
to lethal. Pity! Pity! Deplorable since it is all avoidable.
It takes courage, right seeing and true science, not denial,
trickery and hocus-pocus science.
The European Commission (EC) has decided that these products
must be evaluated. WITH THIS WE CONCUR, but we do not chime
in with the EC putting its faith in animal-based testing;
invalid and harmful, we say beware and cast a nay vote. Moreover,
according to the EC’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation
of Chemicals (REACH) we will get to know the risk, by the
year 2020. Not a good deal! No cheers. Sixteen years from
now? How come? Wherefore? Why not 2004, 2005 or 2006 by the
latest? Reason being, chemicals kill living matter, such as
us! Sad, isn’t it? Human cells and human tissue cultures
are yearning to give the correct answer within the hour or
within hours not years distant and afar. The grim toll continues
to mount: cancer rates are increasing, asthma, especially
in children is escalating, autism in children is soaring and
the 10 billion-cell human brain is increasingly drifting,
propelled into early dementia.
Human prospects on earth are not that bad or grim as many
think or imagine. But, through ignorance, hubris and fiction
we squander options, opportunities and offerings. Listen to
this: 80% of all cancers are preventable, two thirds of all
diseases are diet related. Shouldn’t we prevent the
preventable? Eat right, treat the environment right, and stop
wasting resources and treading roads that mislead. Therefore,
to this Forum, the fallacy of testing chemicals and pharmaceuticals
on animals does belong. It is an environmental issue.
Vivisection* (Animal Experimentation) is one of those evils
grafted on to the human mind by the false prophets of science
and reason. While some agile minds have rejected the ominous
graft, others have accepted it as an article of faith, not
to be questioned, let alone carefully looked at or seriously
examined. And the verdict had been, is, and always will be:
in harming others – human and non-human, sentient and
nonsentient, knowingly and unknowingly – we harm ourselves.
All the while being misled, all the while longing for harmony,
longevity, security and bounty. Longing won’t do it
for us. Hope procrastinates, cowardice defeats, blind obedience
corrupts; figures of authority must be questioned and held
accountable; and, the burden of responsibility is individual,
non-transferrable. Payday isn’t light years away. It
is here, today. Payday is now! Just look: along with higher
cancer rates, asthma, dementia and autism, every survey reveals
that obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and arthritis
are raging, tempestuous and unrestrained. We are always paying
for what we commit and for what we omit. Omission is commission.
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